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Paarl - Nationalisation was a policy that Nelson Mandela himself had supported, ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema said on Thursday.

Malema was speaking at an African National Congress breakfast - held at Drakenstein Prison, near Paarl - to mark the 20th anniversary of Mandela's release.

He said Mandela represented a generation that changed the ANC from a moderate organisation into a fighting force, and had spoken about nationalisation as a policy of the movement.

"We stand opposed to any peace-time heroes who want to oppose nationalisation as not being a policy of the ANC," Malema said.

"Madiba himself is better placed to give a proper interpretation of the Freedom Charter, because Madiba was in the forefront as a volunteer-in-chief."

Malema was referring to the ANC's defiance campaign of the 1950s.

He said that at the Kliptown Congress of the People, Mandela had been a leader and not "a typist".

"He understood very well what the Freedom Charter means. And therefore the youth of today, in emulating Nelson Mandela, we don't want the permission of any individual to live up to the expectations of the 1944 generation.

"Mandela and his generation said freedom in our lifetime, and we want to declare today economic freedom in our lifetime," Malema said.